Under the grace of the moon
by Trades46
Summary: The Silver Queen confronts her fears to end her torment once and for all. A response fic to StormRex Lancer's 'Ophidiophobia'.


**Under the grace of the moon**

_Trades46 here,_

_After reading StormRex Lancer's one-shot (and still waiting for the full thing), I just want to create a reply to his 'Ophidiophobia'. Also, I want to use this to try to write a racing scene for my upcoming series featuring my own cast set in NFSC._

_I don't own NFS or Idolmaster, nor StormRex Lancer's OC (So names aren't mentioned). Wonder if what would happen if I did…_

* * *

The dark highway continued to be lit only under the shining moon with the occasional light, which slowly starts to become more infrequent as the 4 lane road starts to narrow down, 3 lanes, 2 lanes, then becomes a single lane to-and-from each directions.

Takane, the 'Silver Queen' grips the steering wheel of her car header than before, before quickly relaxing herself again. She reminds herself that the creatures that haunt her memories and dreams are only made of her own consciousness. She had already let go of her poisoned raging bull, to bleed herself of the memories of the venomous creature. She has to.

Slowly and carefully she drives up the mountain roads at the end of the highway. The streets are silent and barren; only the night winds and nocturnal creatures emitting sounds along with her machine's baritone engine note. Studying ever single detail on the road, trying to grasp the best lines to use, she continues to drive up to the top. Takane wiped the sweat from her face, forcing herself to relax despite every fiber of her being screaming to leave this road. Her grip tightens again on the steering wheel, with her feet going cold. She stops briefly, and takes a minute of controlled deep breaths before continuing.

With Takane's careful approach despite the reluctance of her mind, she finally approaches the peak of the mountain. Setting her car carefully at the side of the parking lot at the top, she engages the parking brake. Opening a small gap on the windows, she waits… waiting for the noise that has caused her once graceful figure and demeanor to complete shatter, the sound that has come to haunt her for endless nights. Takane felt her breathing speed up again, unable to suppress her trauma from surfacing. Quickly undoing her seat's harness, unlocking the door, she steps out of the car bending over breathless.

Takane start to feel tears coming to her eyes. She feels angry at herself for being so weak, so undignified, so unlike the Takane she used to be. Carefully she wipes her tears away, deciding that she will have to leave if her emotions are not kept in check. She looks at her car that has spent so much time running with since the retirement of her racing bull, waiting for the Silver Queen to once again take the streets once again in the graceful manner only she can achieve.

Staring at her car, she notices the silver paint reflecting off the moonlight ever so brightly. Takane looks up in the sky, seeing the moon in all of its grace that racers had always compared her to. Staring at the bright light of the night, Takane suddenly finds herself being able to relax. She looks back into her car, clenches her fist and her resolve. Getting back into her car, she readies herself for the battle. The fear that has reflected off the Silver Queen's eyes is all but gone, replaced with the grace of the moon. Takane let her eyes feast on the moon's glory once again, letting out a small grin in the process.

Then she heard the noise, that unmistakable exhaust note, echoing throughout the deserted mountain roads. 'It' is here.

Takane quickly closes the windows and releases the parking brake. Turning out of the lot, she turns towards the road as the noise from 'it' continues to become louder and louder, screaming up the mountains like an approaching apocalypse of death.

She closes her eyes once again to focus. In her mind, the venomous creature starts to wrap itself around the herself once again, but the grace of the full moon prevents it from strangling her. Takane has freed her mind from its clutches.

Now, all she has to do is to free her soul. Takane opens her eyes.

... And she instantly sees the said creature pass. The monster that had tormented her soul for so long: the Dodge Viper SRT-10 ACR-X.

With renewed strength and vigour, Takane instinctively moves: clutch, 1st gear, gas in one single fluid motion. The Silver Queen's Audi R8 V12 TDI flies forward in pursuit of the devil snake, which is already threatening to disappear from sight again; to send her into the confinements of her mind.

Her eyes keep watch on the road and her tachometer…3000…4000…4500! Without her mind even thinking about it, she flicks to 2nd. The twin-turbo diesel lets out an angry whoosh of blow-off noise as the torque of the V12 sends the R8 surging forward to its target. Come on…the Silver Queen urges, stepping to 3rd and past the long right sweeper.

Takane watches the devil snake continue to streak and scream in the same way of her memory in her defeated bull. Not letting it slither any further out of her sight, she eases up on the brakes on the long left hairpin, letting off the weight shift as she slides the rear end out to over-steer the rear-heavy R8 into the bend. Takane mentally times the car's slide….now! Flooring the gas, the AWD system immediately gains traction and surges the silver bullet forward towards the Viper.

Takane continues to focus on the road and on the Viper ahead. Tapping lightly on the gas, left foot-braking with heel-toe perfectly rev-matched downshift, she continues to put all her strength into chasing the beast. Blessed under the moon's grace, Takane is no longer afraid of the beast, which was being drawn closer and closer to Silver Queen's diesel hunter. The bright full LED lights drew ever closer to the Viper, and under the intense lights of the R8 the devil snake has lost its fear factor. The growling exhaust note is no longer threatening under the moon's constant watch.

Takane grinned, knowing that whatever the V10 beast is going to do, she can now read every move that it does, no matter how minute the gesture would be.

Going into the complex left/right tight S-turns, the Viper brakes hard and early, with Takane's braking line following right behind it. Hard left then hard right, the Viper suddenly breaks traction from its front left wheel from hitting a patch of fallen leaves. The ACR-X can only brake harder to stop the snake from running down into the depths of the mountain and entering a slide to guide the car back on its course. Doing so opened up the inside lane for just a split second, which is what Takane only needed to shoot forward into the gap, forcing the ACR-X and V12 TDI to exit the S-turns side-by-side.

Gearing up instantly, Takane does not bother to look at the driver of the devil snake. Her mind is now only set on one thing; to beat the Viper down the final straight after the next set of consecutive hair-pins. The Viper begins to creep forward, thanks to its higher power and lighter weight. This did not stop Takane from entering the corner at a similar speed to the Viper aiming at the outside lane. Halfway into the turn, she feels her back-end threatening to break loose, to which she continued to push her car further to the outside. The noticeable 'thump' and drop of height in the back confirmed her right rear wheel pushing against the gutter, fighting the front end to spin-out her R8. Just as the road straightened for the next coming hair-pin, Takane immediately nails the throttle, the V12 twin turbo diesel instant torque responding instantly, inching the R8 forward towards the inside of the last hairpin and corner of this mountain course.

Takane swallowed as she slowly guided her R8 as close to the inside as possible, making full use of her AWD traction as the Viper fell behind from the immediate transition between the hairpins. Just as the final straightaway appears into view, Takane floors it. The R8 twin turbo whines loudly as the diesel motor wails, drowning out the Viper's V10 which has just cleared the hairpin. Takane watches the tachometer closely again, gearing up rapidly at her low 4500rpm rev limit to use her engine's full midrange power in the straight as the Viper is beginning to close the gap. Takane started to breathe faster, coaxing her silver bullet to keep going to keep the ACR-X from reaching her. The finish lies closer as the Viper menacing grille breathes down on the Silver Queen's rear-view. Takane gears up to 5th and in less than a second as the Viper pulls beside her, with little more than 100 meters to go.

Both cars cross the line just milliseconds of each other. with no clear winner in the ending section of the canyon trail. To the Silver Queen, this matter is already no longer of import.

She take a few deep breaths as she cruises the R8 to a stop. The Viper driver's slows down as the silhouette dips over to study the Silver Queen's car and features, and then proceeds to drive off into the night.

The silver-haired girl falls back onto her seat and takes a minute to recuperate the events just before the finish line. After regaining her breath and composure that has left her for so long, she steps out of the car again to look at the moon once again.

With a subtle smile, she pats her R8 V12 TDI. Having won over her soul's greatest foe, the Silver Queen in all of her glory drives off back to her home.

Takane thinks to herself as she enters the freeway smiling, knowing that she also didn't even use a dollar's worth of fuel in that race.

* * *

The racing Viper slowly circled and entered into the garage, shutting off it's raspy engine as a female figure walks out of it. She is immediately greeted by a male who comes towards her with a smile.

"How did she run?" the male figure asks. The female folded her arms as she responds 'She's knocking at around 5k. I barely got any power in that last run to avoid breaking something. The back end is too stiff as well; kept bouncing repeatedly and tailing out mid-corner. Not going to put down any power unless I'm on a track" she grabs a water bottle from the side of the work table. "You really need to start getting things right the first time around."

The male inspects the tires and brakes. "Seems like you gave her a work-out despite of the issues, it's rare that you'd be rushing in recklessly. Something interesting happen up there?"

"Found an interesting pray, decided to play with her a little first. It was that girl in the racing bull a few months back. She's improved."

The man let out a laugh, "You pretty much let her win with the car tuned like this. I'm surprised that you can even race with this setup."

The female figure just give the man a light shove before going back into the garage's office. She'd admit however, she didn't have this much fun for a good while already.

* * *

_That's my bad attempt at a racing scene. It's not hard to see some of it inspired by Initial D, but wasn't the canyon duel inspired by it in the first place?  
_

_Yes, living in Canada means that Diesel prices are relatively low; it is even cheaper than 87 regular octane!  
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_**Note** Edited on Feb 5.  
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_THIS ONE-SHOT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH STORMREX LANCER'S MAIN PLOT. It is simply a non-canonical one-shot in which I wrote as an answer to his fic.  
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_Thanks for reading, remember to comment.  
_

_Trades46_


End file.
